The Coherence of Naturalism (Atheism)

[Haven]

One of the major criticisms of metaphysical naturalism (and by extension, atheism) is that it is logically inconsistent, with some even going as far as to say that it is self-undermining. This criticism, which comes primarily from Reformed Christian thinkers such as Cornelius Van Til, Alvin Plantinga, John Frame, and our own theopoesis, is due to the fact that (according to Reformed thinkers) naturalism cannot account for several features of human existence, such as (objective) morality, existential meaning, consciousness, free will, and aesthetic taste.

Plantinga goes further, saying that a combinstion of evolution and naturalism would lead us to develop cognitive faculties geared for survival rather than truth, meaning that, on naturalism, we would be unable to know whether or not any of our beliefs -- including naturalism itself -- are true, meaning naturalism defeats itself.

As an alternative to naturalism, Reformed thinkers believe Christian theism can account for true cognitive faculties, teleology, morality, beauty, etc., and that it should therefore be preferred over atheistic naturalism. They use a presuppositional approach to illustrate this, arguing that Christian presuppositions are required for a coherent worldview.

Atheists, in my experience, rarely respond to these criticisms. When they (we) do, they tend to defend a naturalistic account of cognitive reliability while writing off morality, aesthetics, knowledge, etc. as subjective or illusory. Naturalistic thinkers also tend to point toward philosophical problems with theism, such as Michael Tooley's (2008) update of the problem of natural evil. Additionally, one major naturalistic response to this comes from philosopher Feng Ye, who attempts to give a naturalistic account of cognitive reliability. The book "Naturalism Defeated?" (2001) was written in response to Plantinga's argument.

Debate question: Are the Reformed thinkers right? Is naturalism coherent? Can atheists account for morality, purpose, etc. on naturalism? Are Christian presuppositions necessary for a coherent worldview? Does Plantinga's argument succeed? Is theism coherent?

[Flail]

One of the major criticisms of metaphysical naturalism (and by extension, atheism) is that it is logically inconsistent, with some even going as far as to say that it is self-undermining. This criticism, which comes primarily from Reformed Christian thinkers such as Cornelius Van Til, Alvin Plantinga, John Frame, and our own theopoesis, is due to the fact that (according to Reformed thinkers) naturalism cannot account for several features of human existence, such as (objective) morality, existential meaning, consciousness, free will, and aesthetic taste.

Plantinga goes further, saying that a combinstion of evolution and naturalism would lead us to develop cognitive faculties geared for survival rather than truth, meaning that, on naturalism, we would be unable to know whether or not any of our beliefs -- including naturalism itself -- are true, meaning naturalism defeats itself.

As an alternative to naturalism, Reformed thinkers believe Christian theism can account for true cognitive faculties, teleology, morality, beauty, etc., and that it should therefore be preferred over atheistic naturalism. They use a presuppositional approach to illustrate this, arguing that Christian presuppositions are required for a coherent worldview.

Atheists, in my experience, rarely respond to these criticisms. When they (we) do, they tend to defend a naturalistic account of cognitive reliability while writing off morality, aesthetics, knowledge, etc. as subjective or illusory. Naturalistic thinkers also tend to point toward philosophical problems with theism, such as Michael Tooley's (2008) update of the problem of natural evil. Additionally, one major naturalistic response to this comes from philosopher Feng Ye, who attempts to give a naturalistic account of cognitive reliability. The book "Naturalism Defeated?" (2001) was written in response to Plantinga's argument.

Debate question: Are the Reformed thinkers right? Is naturalism coherent? Can atheists account for morality, purpose, etc. on naturalism? Are Christian presuppositions necessary for a coherent worldview? Does Plantinga's argument succeed? Is theism coherent?

While metaphysical naturalism cannot coherently account for the deth, nature or source of all human experience, theism attempts by artifice and lore to artificially and disingenuously fill the gaps. I find the more neutral positions of skepticism, suspicion and secular humanism to be more likely to expose or discover objective truths if indeed they exist. If unevidenced beliefs are not essentially necessary, they should be avoided, lest one become duped by easy answers and facile solutions.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

It would be helpful if you could tell us which philosopher associated with verificationism gave the formulation or said anything like - "all propositions require external verification". The formulation you provide appears to be an attempt to make verification appear self stultifying.

A.J. Ayer -- a 20th-century philosopher and proponent of verificationism -- made a similar formulation. In fact, the reason why verificationism (and logical positivism in general) was rejected in academia was that it was self-stultifying.

So what? I don't see what "verificationism" has to do with recognizing the value of verification, or how this one philosopher's sentence diminishes verification as one of our greatest tools for exploring reality.

[Thatguy]

What other way do you have for that? I don't care about 'self stulifying or not'. I just care about 'what works'.

That sounds like a radical form of philosophical pragmatism and/or scientism. So you're willing to abandon the rules of logic (self-refuting statements cannot be true according to logic) in order to go with "what works?"

Keep in mind that "what works" does not always equate to "what is true." I can think of several situations in which something that is completely false "works" (produces a beneficial outcome). Consider this: to borrow Plantinga's example, one who wants to be eaten by a tiger may believe the best way to accomplish that is to run away from it. His beliefs "work" in that they allow him to survive, but they are patently false.

Strong pragmatism is not a path to truth or rationality, conversely, it is the abandonment of the search for truth and the relegation of rationality to strong scientism. It is not philosophy, but the rejection of philosophy.

Strong pragmatism does not state that the sum total of all that exists is that which works. It focuses on what works, what can be tested and verified. One can admit that the unknowable is unknown and may or may not exist. there's no reason to claim to know what you don't know just to have a sense of completion or a sense that you are a truth seeker. There is much that's knowable that's still unknown and a focus on that's not a bad way to pursue one's life.


This doesn't mean that others can't pursue philosophical proofs to their hearts' content. But the more they do so just to rationalize conclusions they've already reached the less useful their pursuit becomes.

I'm not sure you typed that tiger argument correctly, but i'd like to discuss it from the way you typed it and what you might have meant.

If you want to be eaten by a tiger and run away and succeed in getting eaten you don't, thereafter, draw any conclusions at all.

If you don't want to be eaten by a tiger and run away you may decide that, based on personal experienced, verified by your own opinion, the best way to avoid being killed by a tiger is running away from it. But personal verification is no way to go about finding out the truth. After all, the tiger might not have been hungry. The tiger might have been defective in its hunting abilities. You might have run in a direction the tiger has learned from past experience is dangerous to it. Heck, you might have only thought you saw a tiger. But if you take your experience not as verification by your own internal sensations, but as a piece of evidence in support of determining what works, it's a perfectly valid fact to be incorporated in the pool of data used to determine what's the best way to avoid a tiger attack. Personal verification may call it the best way. But someone concerned with empirical verification would never called one way that might or might not have worked the "best" way. Best is a comparison. you'd have to compile data on tiger biology and other ways of trying to avoid tiger attacks. so unless there's more that you've left out because we should all know the complete example cited, this doesn't work at all to invalidate reliance on what works, but it does go far toward invalidating personal validation of facts.

[Furrowed Brow]

It would be helpful if you could tell us which philosopher associated with verificationism gave the formulation or said anything like - "all propositions require external verification". The formulation you provide appears to be an attempt to make verification appear self stultifying.

A.J. Ayer -- a 20th-century philosopher and proponent of verificationism -- made a similar formulation. In fact, the reason why verificationism (and logical positivism in general) was rejected in academia was that it was self-stultifying.

Similar? Care to quote the fomulation you think is similar. I am pretty sure he never said "all propositions require external verification" or anything like it. I will have learnt something if you can find an example, otherwise I shall persevere with the belief he said nothing like what you are trying to attribute to him. I think you are arguing against what you would like verificationism to be. Kind of looks like a strawman here.

There may have been more than one reason academia moved on to other things...but on the whole it was not because verificationism was self ridiculous. I think it was mostly undermined by the kind of philosophy of language that fell out of the work of the later Wittgenstein, along with a drift away from logical positivism

[Haven]

While metaphysical naturalism cannot coherently account for the deth, nature or source of all human experience, theism attempts by artifice and lore to artificially and disingenuously fill the gaps. I find the more neutral positions of skepticism, suspicion and secular humanism to be more likely to expose or discover objective truths if indeed they exist. If unevidenced beliefs are not essentially necessary, they should be avoided, lest one become duped by easy answers and facile solutions.

I agree with this 100%. I'm largely unimpressed with metaphysical naturalism, but I don't see any form of theism as a valid solution. I'm a metaphysical skeptic, and I feel Humanism provides decent values for individuals to live by in the absence of something more objective.

Strong pragmatism does not state that the sum total of all that exists is that which works. It focuses on what works, what can be tested and verified. One can admit that the unknowable is unknown and may or may not exist. there's no reason to claim to know what you don't know just to have a sense of completion or a sense that you are a truth seeker. There is much that's knowable that's still unknown and a focus on that's not a bad way to pursue one's life.

I would describe myself as a weak pragmatist in the sense that I go with "what works" in my day-to-day life . . . but I suspect most people (including theists) would fall under that definition of pragmatism. Although strong pragmatism doesn't say that the sum of all that is true is "that which works," it limits the scope of epistemic knowledge to "that which works," and I find that a problematic statement for reasons I expressed earlier.

. . . But if you take your experience not as verification by your own internal sensations, but as a piece of evidence in support of determining what works, it's a perfectly valid fact to be incorporated in the pool of data used to determine what's the best way to avoid a tiger attack . . .

I'm not arguing that personal verification or pragmatism is not useful in determining what is true. My argument was against verificationism, or the epistemic philosophy that only propositions which can be externally verified can be known, and strong pragmatism, the view that defines truth as "what works" and the epistemic position that one can only know that which "works."

So what? I don't see what "verificationism" has to do with recognizing the value of verification, or how this one philosopher's sentence diminishes verification as one of our greatest tools for exploring reality.

See above comments.

Similar? Care to quote the fomulation you think is similar?

To test whether a sentence expresses a genuine empirical hypothesis, I adopt a modified verification principle . . .I require of an empirical hypothesis not that it should be conclusively verifiable, but that some possible sense experience should be relevant to the determination of its truth or falsehood. If a putative proposition fails to satisfy this principle, and is not a tautology, then I hold that it is metaphysical and that it is neither true nor false but literally senseless.

From Language, Truth, and Logic (1936).

[AquinasD]

I am sure your reason made you come to that conclusion, but how can you show that conclusion is reasonable?

If the conclusion follows from the premises, and the premises are reasonable, then some might suggest that the conclusion shares the property of being reasonable.

However, reality doesn't seem to care what humans 'reason', .. what is true is true no matter what man thinks or reasons.

Do you believe that you are objecting to a premise in my argument?

When it comes to examining the nature of reality, how can you be sure that the mental construction has anything to do with reality except by verification?

The line of inquiry you mean to pursue is not going to get me or you anywhere. The problem is that you aren't providing an objection to my argument, only asking "And how do you know that?" repeatedly without regards to framing what it is that don't understand of my argument.

What is your methodology?

As the estimable and wise Pooh Bear does, you "Think think think."

[Goat]

I am sure your reason made you come to that conclusion, but how can you show that conclusion is reasonable?

If the conclusion follows from the premises, and the premises are reasonable, then some might suggest that the conclusion shares the property of being reasonable.

However, reality doesn't seem to care what humans 'reason', .. what is true is true no matter what man thinks or reasons.

Do you believe that you are objecting to a premise in my argument?

When it comes to examining the nature of reality, how can you be sure that the mental construction has anything to do with reality except by verification?

The line of inquiry you mean to pursue is not going to get me or you anywhere. The problem is that you aren't providing an objection to my argument, only asking "And how do you know that?" repeatedly without regards to framing what it is that don't understand of my argument.

What is your methodology?

As the estimable and wise Pooh Bear does, you "Think think think."

And how do you distinguish between a true answer and 'making things up '? If you have a little black box, you can speculate all you want about the content of that box, and rationalize anything you want, but unless you can look, you never can find out if you are right.

[AquinasD]

And how do you distinguish between a true answer and 'making things up '?

I consult the Tao Te Ching. Or a psychic, if I have the spare change. One time a friend and I settled a theological dispute by casting lots.

If you have a little black box, you can speculate all you want about the content of that box, and rationalize anything you want, but unless you can look, you never can find out if you are right.

Sure, but why do you think this is analogous to metaphysics? Can you explain without helping yourself to a few choice metaphysical morsels here and there? I'm almost under the impression that this stock objection of yours comes out whenever you don't know how to handle an argument.

[Furrowed Brow]

Similar? Care to quote the fomulation you think is similar?

To test whether a sentence expresses a genuine empirical hypothesis, I adopt a modified verification principle . . .I require of an empirical hypothesis not that it should be conclusively verifiable, but that some possible sense experience should be relevant to the determination of its truth or falsehood. If a putative proposition fails to satisfy this principle, and is not a tautology, then I hold that it is metaphysical and that it is neither true nor false but literally senseless.

From Language, Truth, and Logic (1936).

The quote is taken from the preface to the first edition.

OK this is why you are misrepresenting Ayer: the quote you found is not similar and its meaning is nothing like "all propositions require external verification". In the previous paragraph of the preface Ayer splits propositions into two classes, analytical propositions which are the propositions of logic and mathematics and about which we are certain, and propositions about matter of fact.

• Point (1) the verification principle does not apply to all propositions. Analytical propositions are exempt. Your formulation is misleading on this point. The principle is aimed at any statement that pretends to have a factual content.
  
  Point (2) when Ayer says "I require of an empirical hypothesis not that it should be conclusively verifiable, but that some possible sense experience should be relevant to the determination of its truth or falsehood" this means what it says, i.e. there be some possible correlation between sense experience to determining whether the proposition is true or false. It does not means "all propositions require external verification". Ayer makes a clear distinction between strong and weak verification which your formulation fails to allow for and makes it look like Ayer is only promoting strong verification which he is not. To be clear Ayer's position is that factual propositions do not "require verification". There only need be in principle some observation relevant to determining whether a proposition is true or false. Thus you are trying to force Ayer into a position he does not hold and that looks very different to what he does hold.
  
  Point (3): you introduce the term "external" a term which does not belong to Ayer and it introduces an internal/external framework which does not apply.

In the one short sentence "all propositions require external verification" you manage to misrepresent the kind of verificationism actually held by one of its leading proponents on three counts. That is dense packing.

[Haven]

OK this is why you are misrepresenting Ayer: the quote you found is not similar and its meaning is nothing like "all propositions require external verification".

In the previous paragraph of the preface Ayer splits propositions into two classes, analytical propositions which are the propositions of logic and mathematics and about which we are certain, and propositions about matter of fact.

• Point (1) the verification principle does not apply to all propositions. Analytical propositions are exempt. Your formulation is misleading on this point.

I apologize if the language of my original statement excluded the exemption of analytical propositions. That was a mistake. The gist of my post was concerning non-analytical propositions, however.

The principle is aimed at any statement that pretends to have a factual content.

Which still leaves the principle self-stultifying: the verification principle is not an analytical proposition, and would itself require verification.

Point (2) when Ayer says "I require of an empirical hypothesis not that it should be conclusively verifiable, but that some possible sense experience should be relevant to the determination of its truth or falsehood" this means what it says, i.e. there be some possible correlation between sense experience to determining whether the proposition is true or false. It does not means "all propositions require external verification".

I granted that in my original post on Ayer and verificationism. However, as I mentioned above, this principle is still self-defeating, because the verification principle itself would require "some possible correlation between sense experience and itself," and no such empirical experience is available.

Besides, the correlation between sense (empirical) data and (non-analytical) propositions is a form of external verification, so I see no need to retract my original statement, at least as it pertains to non-analytical propositions.

Ayer makes a clear distinction between strong and weak verification which your formulation fails to allow for and makes it look like Ayer is only promoting strong verification which he is not.

It was not my intent to convey the message that Ayer only promoted strong verification (as you said, he didn't), I apologize if my OP made it seem as if that was Ayer's intent.

Still, I'm not sure how this is relevant to the question of whether or not verificationism is self-refuting, because . . .

To be clear Ayer's position is that factual propositions do not "require verification". There only need be in principle some observation relevant to determining whether a proposition is true or false.

This principle would need to be applied to itself, and I don't see how it could pass its own test. What empirical observation leads one to believe that factual propositions require the support of some empirical observation?

Besides, what is "empirical observation" if not a form of "verification?"

Point (3): you introduce the term "external" a term which does not belong to Ayer and it introduces an internal/external framework which does not apply.

I fail to see how my use of the word "external" is relevant to your critique of my post. Empirical observation is by definition external to the proposition it supports, therefore, I don't see how I misspoke. I was paraphrasing Ayer, not directly quoting him; I never said that Ayer used the word "external."